Aus dem Literaturerbe in die Sprachwissenschaft

In medieval studies the term „literaturę" covers practically all notions of fictional or artistic and factual or scientific writing. Works of totally different kinds of literaturę may be found united in a compilation sharing literary fame though not materiał comprehension. A case in point is the compilation of Snorra Edda and the Grammatical Treatises in the Codex Wormianus. This article sketches the history of understanding and misunderstanding the duality of the pooled texts

Stabreim und Endreim

The remnants of ancient German alliterating poetry that have come down to us are sparse. In the middle of the 9th century alliterating poetry had practically come to an end in the High German language area. At the same time an extensive Christian literature made its appearance (Otfried), using almost exclusively end rhyme. In accordance with the prevalent philological opinion that end rhyme harmonizes perfectly with the concept of Christianity. It was the ideal vehicle for communicating Christian flights of fancy, which alliterating rhyme was not. Alliteration, therefore, yields to end rhyme. In the light of a of Icelandic poetry this view cannot be shared. Christian poetry, be it Scaldic art (e.g. Lilja), be it baroque art (e.g. Passiusalmar), conveys its message harmoniously using a strict alliteration pattern with end rhyme. The alliterating end rhyme verse is the typical pattern of Icelandic poetry, with its earliest appearance in early Scaldic poetry. - An appendix to this article treats alliterating end rhyme verse in Finnish literature

Law and Society: The Criminalization of Latinx in the United States

The United States leads the world in incarceration with just over 2.2 million people in state or federal prisons or local jails in 2014 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2016). Although the number of incarcerated individuals has declined by about .5 percent since its peak in 2008 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2016), the fact remains that mass incarceration is an epidemic in the United States. Over the last decade much has been written about the effects of mass incarceration on people of color, with many analysts pointing to the fear of crime as contributing to the formulation of current policies, which in turn produce racial and ethnic inequalities in the American penal system (Morin 2009). For example, the “war on drugs” is often cited as the greatest force behind the growth of the prison population and has largely targeted the Latinx and African American communities, based on the misperception that they are responsible for a majority of drug-related crimes (Morín 2009). That Latinx have historically been perceived as criminals, drug-lords, and as particularly prone to violence has only increased support for punitive policies and harsher sentences. As the country’s largest racial and ethnic group and the fastest growing ethnic group being imprisoned, it is important to examine the ways in which the Latinx community has been impacted by the relationship between law and society in the U.S. Beginning with the understanding that law is both constituted by and constitutes social relations; this thesis aims to demonstrate the ways in which negative cultural stereotypes have been used to 1) create laws that criminalize Latinx groups and 2) sanction their mistreatment in legal and non-legal settings. By focusing on the specific time periods of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, we can see that negative images of Latinx groups perpetuated in the media are used strategically by policymakers to rouse public outcry and garner support for harsher, more punitive criminal justice and immigration policies for both adults and juveniles, contributing to higher incarceration rates and mass deportation. Once validated and reinforced by official law, these negative stereotypes then trickle down into non-legal social institutions

Insulin and TOR signal in parallel through FOXO and S6K to promote epithelial wound healing

The TOR and Insulin/IGF signalling (IIS) network controls growth, metabolism and ageing. Although reducing TOR or insulin signalling can be beneficial for ageing, it can be detrimental for wound healing, but the reasons for this difference are unknown. Here we show that IIS is activated in the cells surrounding an epidermal wound in Drosophila melanogaster larvae, resulting in PI3K activation and redistribution of the transcription factor FOXO. Insulin and TOR signalling are independently necessary for normal wound healing, with FOXO and S6K as their respective effectors. IIS is specifically required in cells surrounding the wound, and the effect is independent of glycogen metabolism. Insulin signalling is needed for the efficient assembly of an actomyosin cable around the wound, and constitutively active myosin II regulatory light chain suppresses the effects of reduced IIS. These findings may have implications for the role of insulin signalling and FOXO activation in diabetic wound healing

Investigating the thermal state of permafrost with Bayesian inverse modeling of heat transfer

Long-term measurements of permafrost temperatures do not provide a complete picture of the Arctic subsurface thermal regime. Regions with warmer permafrost often show little to no long-term change in ground temperature due to the uptake and release of latent heat during freezing and thawing. Thus, regions where the least warming is observed may also be the most vulnerable to permafrost degradation. Since direct measurements of ice and liquid water contents in the permafrost layer are not widely available, thermal modeling of the subsurface plays a crucial role in understanding how permafrost responds to changes in the local energy balance. In this work, we first analyze trends in observed air and permafrost temperatures at four sites within the continuous permafrost zone, where we find substantial variation in the apparent relationship between long-term changes in permafrost temperatures (0.02–0.16 K yr−1) and air temperature (0.09–0.11 K yr−1). We then apply recently developed Bayesian inversion methods to link observed changes in borehole temperatures to unobserved changes in latent heat and active layer thickness using a transient model of heat conduction with phase change. Our results suggest that the degree to which recent warming trends correlate with permafrost thaw depends strongly on both soil freezing characteristics and historical climatology. At the warmest site, a 9 m borehole near Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, modeled active layer thickness increases by an average of 13 ± 1 cm K−1 rise in mean annual ground temperature. In stark contrast, modeled rates of thaw at one of the colder sites, a borehole on Samoylov Island in the Lena River delta, appear far less sensitive to temperature change, with a negligible effect of 1 ± 1 cm K−1. Although our study is limited to just four sites, the results urge caution in the interpretation and comparison of warming trends in Arctic boreholes, indicating significant uncertainty in their implications for the current and future thermal state of permafrost.</p

Complete atrial-specific knockout of sodium-calcium exchange eliminates sinoatrial node pacemaker activity.

The origin of sinoatrial node (SAN) pacemaker activity in the heart is controversial. The leading candidates are diastolic depolarization by "funny" current (If) through HCN4 channels (the "Membrane Clock" hypothesis), depolarization by cardiac Na-Ca exchange (NCX1) in response to intracellular Ca cycling (the "Calcium Clock" hypothesis), and a combination of the two ("Coupled Clock"). To address this controversy, we used Cre/loxP technology to generate atrial-specific NCX1 KO mice. NCX1 protein was undetectable in KO atrial tissue, including the SAN. Surface ECG and intracardiac electrograms showed no atrial depolarization and a slow junctional escape rhythm in KO that responded appropriately to β-adrenergic and muscarinic stimulation. Although KO atria were quiescent they could be stimulated by external pacing suggesting that electrical coupling between cells remained intact. Despite normal electrophysiological properties of If in isolated patch clamped KO SAN cells, pacemaker activity was absent. Recurring Ca sparks were present in all KO SAN cells, suggesting that Ca cycling persists but is uncoupled from the sarcolemma. We conclude that NCX1 is required for normal pacemaker activity in murine SAN